White
by Zion Angel
Summary: "He was cold, he was calculating. He never told me he loved me."


Title: White

Author: ZionAngel

Rating: PG-13

Length: 954 words

Summary: "He was cold, he was calculating. He never told me he loved me."

Warning: One not-really-very-spoilery line of dialogue from IM2. Also, depressing as fucking hell.

AN: Stupid plot bunnies. You try to get some good sleep so you can get up early for a sale at the craft store, and then they just come traipsing into your brain. Urgh.

"What do you remember about your dad?"

"He was cold. He was calculating. He never told me he loved me, he never even told me he _liked_ me."

He wakes to a steady, persistent beeping sound. The steady, slower rhythm of his name in a man's soothing voice. He is sure, at first, that it must be his father's voice. But when he opens his eyes, and his mind begins to clear and make sense of the sights and sounds around him, he finds a stranger standing in front of him.

"Tony? Tony," he says again. "Tony, my name is Dr. Harper. You're in a hospital."

The walls are white. Harsh fluorescent lights are spaced along the ceiling behind translucent white rectangles. The sheets are white. The machines are white. The doctor is wearing white.

"You were in a car accident, Tony. Do you remember?"

He tries to speak, but the breath from his mouth is cold, lifeless, white. He shakes his head.

The doctor frowns. "You don't remember what happened at all?"

Tony stares at the man.

"Tony, what's the last thing you _do_ remember?"

His memory of that evening is a blank slate. Pristine and white, like the hospital room where he recovers for four days. By the time he leaves the white room, he decides it must be for the best—he would not want to carry the memory of his parents dying before his eyes for the rest of his life.

Tony sits in the back seat of his father's Rolls Royce, as always, behind his mother in the passenger seat. His father drives, taking them through Manhattan traffic, the sun glaring through the windshield as it sets into the canyon between miles of skyscrapers. Tony and his mother talk amongst themselves, deciding which Christmas songs she should play on the piano at their party tomorrow night.

"Howard, what do you want to hear?" his mother asks, a note of laughter in her voice.

"I don't know, Honey." _Honey_. Always _Honey_, despite everything else. The loving pet name always sounded out of place to Tony's ears. "You're the expert, you pick."

"Well, you'll be there _too_." Always a cheerful, loving tone. That always sounded unfit, too. "You should get to pick at least a couple of songs you like. Come on, tell me, I know them all –"

The dull sheen of muted grey metal appears for only a moment through the orange glare of the setting sun, but in that moment it is wrong and dangerous and terrifying. He screams a warning to his father, but by the second syllable his words are drowned out by the deafening shriek of tearing, twisting metal. The jolt as the two cars collide is gut-wrenching, the pain excruciating as he hears glass shatter, and shards cut into his forehead.

He sees, hears, knows nothing but _black_, on and on without end.

The steady, high-pitched ringing in his ears pulls him back, drowns him in pain.

_Tony… Tony –_

He tries moving, tries being perfectly still, but only feels a different kind of searing pain, pounding headache, or excruciating torment unlike any he has ever felt before in his life –

"TONY!" The scream sears through his head like a bullet, but his eyes open wide, and he tries to process. The car is on its side. He can only see his mother's black hair above her seat. His head is lying on a bed of shattered glass, pavement, and blood. His father hangs above him like some grotesque rag doll, half caught in the seatbelt. Blood is streaming down his face, neck, and the hand that hangs down across his mother's seat. But his eyes are open, and he is looking at Tony.

"Tony – don't pass out, okay? You have to stay awake Tony, you hear me?"

"Dad…" he whimpers. He feels his throat choke up, like he's about to cry. He doesn't understand why. "I…"

"It's gonna be okay, Tony, it'll be all right." He stares at Tony, holding his eyes earnestly, sternly. Tony can see his father's fear. "Just –" His eyes roll up, and he squeezes them shut for a few seconds.

"Dad… we had a car crash, and—and…"

"I know, Tony, I know." He opens his eyes again. He's panting, like he can't catch his breath. "You're gonna be okay, just don't fall asleep, whatever you do -"

"Dad, you're bleeding." His father's blood falls from his head and hands onto Tony's side of the car in little drops, steady. They're falling faster than they were a second ago. He only just seems to notice, now that Tony mentions it.

His father looks around them, at the carnage they lay in. And then he just looks so, so very sad. "Tony… I… there's a lot of things I wish I could take back… things I would do differently. I'm sorry." His voice grows weaker with each word. "I love you, Tony. I love you."

And Tony just stares. Stares as his father's eyes become glassy, his breathing becomes shallow and raspy and weak. Stares as he knows what's about to happen, just knows it like he knows the sky is blue, any second now. "…love you too…"

His father's lips quirk up on one side, every last bit of strength to muster a smile. A loving smile.

The throbbing beneath his skull intensifies. He tries to keep his eyes open, but he has to squeeze them shut against the pain. He clings to consciousness, this moment, this place, but it's slipping away, and his fingers grow weaker and weaker with each fleeting second, until his consciousness finally falls through his fingertips, and the world fades into whiteness.


End file.
